Diana Wilson, the CEO of Yielding Accomplished African Women (YaaW.), has set a mission to build the largest talent pipeline and online academy for Black college women in STEM across the diaspora, and the place where hundreds of young women are building their careers. The first of its kind in the world.
Diana is a rape survivor and even that incident did not break her, but rather became a catalyst for her to perceive and identify with her purpose.
Sometimes people with incredible talent and ideas are crushed by the storms of difficulties of life yet for others they turn the storms to calm waters and swim in them. After overcoming them they become the driving force of exciting and important changes in the world. This is the story of Diana Wilson.
Diana, the CEO of YaaW, an organization, named after Yaa Asantewaa, a Ghanaian feminist heroine, Queen mother and warrior, an African’s premier nonprofit organization committed to digitizing and developing Africa’s best talent with a focus on women has won the award for Female innovator of the year at the Africa Tech Festival Awards 2021.
The awards scheme is to honour individuals and groups making strides on the tech scene in Africa as a whole and dubbed as the most influential tech event on the African continent.
Africa Tech Festival has served as a bridge connecting business leaders, tech experts, policymakers, and investors, all at the forefront of Africa’s digital transformation, uniting tech and talent for socio-economic impact. For an amazing 24 years.
Diana Wilson, through Yielding Accomplished African Women has worked and trained over 710 young African women and has a more than 7k following.
Due to such an incredible effort, her company is backed by companies such as Bank of America, Google, IBM, MTN, Corporate Finance Institute (CFI), Educative.io, etc.
The 25 years old Diana has raised over $455k in sponsorships at this time as well as led over 2500 young women across the continent in just 2.5 years.
Yielding Accomplished African Women is purported to have the largest community of African female leaders in finance, machine learning/AI and software engineering.
Her NGO can now be found in the United States, United Kingdom, and 12 countries in Africa with representation from every region in Africa. She aims to reach 30,000 women by 2030.
Diana was born in Newark, to a single Ghanaian immigrant mother. She faced several hardships including being raised by one mother and being a low-income student and a victim of rape.
Diana is a strong smart woman and a succinct definition of the popular saying: do not let your background set your back to the ground.
She graduated from the University of Virginia with a full scholarship and earned over a hundred thousand dollars in other scholarships from various organizations.
Diana has been recognized with some achievements. She has gained attention through MTV and LinkedIn. She has also featured in We Will Lead Africa, a compilation of the stories of 32 top African female leaders today, as a published author.
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